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EDITORIAL
Commerce tends to wear off those
prejudices which maintain destruction and
animosity between nations. It softens and
polishes the manners of men. It unites them
by one of the strongest of all ties--the desire
of supplying their mutual wants. It disposes
‘them to peace by establishing in every state
and order of citizens bound by their interest
to be the guardians of public tranquility.
—-F. W. Robertson
The DOT Report
Under the able leadership of Bill Scranton, the
new Rail Task Force swung into action this week.
After months of doing its homework, the task force
has rallied citizens to the bench to tell the ICC what
a devastating blow it would be to the Northeast if a
U.S. Transportation Department report is accepted
by Congress. The drastic effect the inadequate, er-
roneous, and superficial report would have on the
regional economy cannot be over emphasized.
The DOT report calls for 445 miles of trackage to
be abandoned in the 22-county northeast area, or 31
percent of all rails to be scrapped in the state. This
would add 142,000 railroad carloads to our burgeon-
ing highway system now, never mind any future
growth.
Six hundred shippers, employing 110,000 people
with an annual payroll of $687 million falls into jeo-
pardy. With an energy crisis facing us, trucks aver-
age four times more fuel per ton mile than do
trains.
Seventeen thousand farmers in the 22-county re-
gion will see their cost for feed and grain shipped in
by rail increased an estimated $5 per ton, which
may increase food prices as much as 50 percent.
Anthracite coal, the region’s most abundant na-
tural resource, estimated at 13 billion tons, would
be jeopardized because coal as a fossil fuel be-
comes uneconomic when transported by truck.
7,300 jobs are dependent on the railroads, repre-
senting an annual payroll in excess of $51 million.
The story is the same across the region.
The DOT report, based on shoddy information at
best, shows that the U.S. Transportation Depart-
ment appears to be operating without constructive
leadership, professional expertise, and with out-
dated data.
Testimony from business, labor, civic, consu-
mer, industrial, agricultural and governmental
representatives, many under the guidance of the
task force, will challenge the DOT report in the ICC
hearings. But that’s not the whole battle. During
coming months a mammoth lobby effort must be
spearheaded to persuade members of Congress
that the economic stability and deprivation of the
region hangs in the balance. The Transportation
Department appears confident that Congress will
eventually adopt the major part of its plan.
As reported in a recent issue of the Wall Street
Journal, a DOT spokesman said ‘“local officials
have protested individual rail freight abandonment
proposals on many past occasions. But this is the
first time they have been confronted with a mas-
sive plan, and one that may well wind up being en-
dorsed by Congress.’’ One DOT planner is confident
this weight will help push it through. “They used to
fight every abandonment tooth and nail,” he is
quoted as saying, ‘‘but when you hit them with it all
at once, they don’t know what to do.”
Citizens in this region must not drop the ball at
this point. We must show DOT officials that we do
know what to do, and that our message will be loud
and clear.
We must show that we will not stand still while
DOT bureaucrats flagrantly violate the will of Con-
gress in its preparation of the interim report based
on inaccurate information about the past, an arbi-
trary approach to the present, and no concern or
planning for the future.
Not only do we need most of the existing rail ser-
vice in the 22-county area for our economic sur-
vival, but we need improvements, responsibly
planned, economically worthy, and quickly carried
out.
Anything less for Northeastern Pennsylvania
would mean economic genocide.
J. R. Freeman
a
I have been on the road lately, flying the
rib-eye circuit across the South, and distill
this impression from a hundred conversa-
tions: Inflation may be Concern No. 1 in this
region, but Topic No. 1 is impeachment. In
every gathering, the first questions have to do
with Richard Nixon: Will the old pro hang on
to his title?
3 The sports metaphor has unusual appli-
cation down here. For good or ill, the South in
recent years has lost many of its regional dis-
tinctions, but it has retained this much:
Southerners, as a breed, are still wild about
sports. The tradition goes back to the first
fun-loving Virginia Cavaliers, with their
racehorses and gamecocks; it is manifested
here in New Orleans today in the awesome
Superdome, which squats like some massive
Buddah over the central city, a $130 million
idol for the fans.
Given this obsession, it is not surprising
to find that many Southerners look upon im-
peachment as a kind of novel spectator sport.
It is Nixon in this corner and his collective op-
position in the other. The Fight of the Cen-
tury, folks, and how do you see the odds?
After a few hours of such conversation, a poli-
tical writer wants to yield to Howard Cosell.
The approach may sound both cynical
and superficial, but it has its advantages.
There is this to be said of any sports event,
that it is played by rules, that it is subject to
referees or umpires, and that it winds up with
a decision or a final score. However wildly the
fans may disagree with the officials, the out-
come is accepted. And there is this above all:
No matter how passionately the fans may
view a particular event, they understand that
a sports event is not the be-all and end-all. If
Tulane loses, the university survives.
It is no bad thing to look upon impeach-
ment in this fashion. There has been entirely
too much apocalyptic fulmination about the
state of the President. If the House impeaches
Mr. Nixon, and the Senate removes him from
office, the Republic will survive. The old pro
fate for old pros. Such an outcome would elate
the Nixon haters and crush the Nixon rooters,
but so long as the fans had seen a fair match,
TRB
from Washington
by Richard Strout
I doubt if the public yet realizes the kind
of drama before it if the House impeaches
President Nixon, which now seems at least
possible. Here are the lines spoken on March
13, 1868, in the US Senate:
The Chief Justice (Salmon P. Chase):
“The Sergeant-at-Arms will call the accus-
ed.”
The Sergeant-at-Arms: ‘‘Andrew John-
son, President of the United States, Andrew
Johnson, President of the United States,
appear and answer the articles of im-
peachment exhibited against you by the
House of Representatives of the United
States.”
The chamber is jammed. The black-
robed Chief Justice escorted to his podium by
a committee of senators and facing the seven
“Managers” (prosecutors) and the entire
House of Representatives (who have come
over, two-by-two, from their legislative wing)
intones,
‘Make proclamation!”
The Sergeant-at-Arms: ‘‘Hear ye! Hear
ye! All persons are commanded to keep
silence while the Senate of the United States is
sitting for the trials of the articles of im-
peachment exhibited by the House of Repre-
sentatives against Andrew Johnson, Pre-
sident of the United States.”
One rubs one’s eyes? Is this possible in
1974? These are the actual spine-tingling
words uttered on that fateful day. One has to
read them, I think; to make this incredible
scene come alive. Will William Wannal, the
inconspicuous present-day Senate Sergeant-
at-Arms from Montgomery County, Md.,
twice repeat his tremendous summons to
“Richard Milhouse Nixon to appear and ans-
| Capitol Notes
by William Ecenbarger
The scheme to build a $150 million agri-
cultural exposition center has been put out to
pasture by the Pennsylvania General Assem-
bly, but it is disturbing to ponder how it ever
came so close to becoming a reality.
The proposal was simply a rather bizarre
example of a rather common practice in
Harrisburg called pork-barreling—the con-
struction of pet projects at public expense.
Pork-barreling is as old as parliamentary
government itself. Its strength lies in its
domino effect—Legislator X agrees to sup-
port Legislator Y’s project if Legislator Y will
support Legislator X’s project. Before it’s
over, you might have 40 lawmakers scratch-
ing each other’s back with tax dollars.
The Keystone Exhibition Center was bill-
ed as a replacement for the existing State
Farm Show Complex in Harrisburg, which is
the site of several one-week agricultural
expositions, rock concerts, political rallies,
high school basketball games and other Spe-
cial events. The buildings lay fallow about
nine months out of the year.
Although the aborted legislation set aside
$150 million for the project. the actual cost
played by the rules, in time the event would
fade into the record books like last year’s
Superbowl—or last year’s vice president.
What are the rules of this contest? The
House Judiciary Committee is attempting to
reduce them to writing now. Because not even
his worst enemy has imputed ‘‘treason’’ to the
President, it is clear that under the Constitu-
tion he could be impeached only for ‘‘bribery,
high crimes and misdemeanors.” The terms
come from the vocabulary of the criminal
law. The Constitution also speaks of ‘‘convic-
tion’’ and of “trial.”’ I take all this to mean
that an impeachable offense must be a cri-
minal offense.
¢
If this is a reasonable construction, it fol-
lows that Mr. Nixon might fairly be im-
peached on such charges as obstruction of
Justice, evasion of taxes, acceptance of bribes
in the guise of campaign contributions, or the
misappropriation of public funds to his pri-
vate benefit. He could not be impeached for
such actions as the bombing of Cambodia or
the impoundment of various funds.
Is there probable cause to believe the
President has committed an impeachable
offense? It seems to be highly doubtful. But if
a majority of the House should vote to im-
peach. could proof of guilt be produced before
A Greenstreet News Co. Publication
the Senate? This strikes me as more unlikely
still. As a defendant on trial, Mr. Nixon would
be entitled to every protection of due process
of law—to the presumption of innocence, to
cross-examination of hostile witnesses, to the
exclusion of hearsay testimony, to a final in-
struction on reasonable doubt.
Will the old pro hold his title? I am no
Jimmy the Greek, but if you want to make
book: Three to one the House will not im-
peach, fifty to one the Senate will not convict.
When the lights go down in the congressional
Superdome, Mr. Nixon will be the winner, and
like it or not, still the champ. .
1974
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1
wer” the House charges?
This possibility can no longer be dis-
missed. The present betting is now, I think,
three-to-one that the House Judiciary com-
mittee will recommend impeachment. It will
hand down articles which put a broad inter-
pretation on that ambiguous phrase ‘‘high
crimes and misdemeanors.” And the House
itself? Most people would say, I think that it’s
a toss-up; there is certainly not a majority for
impeachment yet.
But the vote is not today, it’s three or four
months off, after the Rodino committee’s re-
port, after the three pending grand juries
make their reports, after the probable new
White House confrontation with Special Pro-
secutor Jaworski, after the prospective public
testimony of that lethal witness with the choir
boy face, John W. Dean III.
The brutal fact is that a large part of the
nation and a majority of Congress would very
much like to get rid of President Nixon, and
substitute Jerry Ford, if they only knew how.
proaches panic. Barry Goldwater sees a 10
percent drop in Republican support if Mr.
Nixon remains in office without raising his
standing in the polls. That could be a loss of 70
GOP House seats—a holocaust. Democrats
last week captured the ‘‘safe” House seat in
Michigan left vacant by Mr. Ford which Re-
publicans have held since 1911. It changed
America’s political climate. “Watergate kill-
ed us; I don’t know of anything else,” des-
pairing Michigan Republican chairman Wil-
liam McLaughlin exclaimed. “I’m sure we'll
win, said Minority Leader Rhodes before the
election, ‘but we must win big.” They lost.
The public is speaking up about Watergate.
House impeachment will probably de-
pend on how many Republican members join
pass the buck if they.want. They can argue
that they seek to send the whole issue to the
Senate to give Mr. Nixon a ‘‘fair trial’; the
House will merely indict, let the Senators say
“guilty’’ or “not guilty’’! It is the line of least
resistence and probably the safest thing for
many Representatives.
We're lucky the reckless passions of 1868
don’t inflame the present crisis. Enemies of
President Johnson charged that he partici-
pated in the plot against President Lincoln.
Squint-eyed Ben Butler of Boston, one of the
most despicable demagogues America has
ever produced charged, on the House floor,
(March 3, 1968) that President Johnson got
“into an open barouche with two abandoned
women, roaring drunk, and rode up and down
Pennsylvania Avenue...”
Whether then or since, the great bulk of
Constitutional students conclude that the
Founding Fathers meant just what they said
in giving the broadest grounds for impeach-
ment. “Acts that undermine the integrity of
government’ is the catchall definition which
the Association of the Bar of the City of New
York, puts on it, and the Olympian Charles
Evans Hughes once wrote, that ‘‘according to
the weight of opinion, impeachable offenses
include, not merely acts that are indictable,
but serious misbehavior.
Meanwhile, in another battleground here,
_ it remains to be seen whether the Department
of Agriculture, which arranged the Great
Grain Robbery with the Russians in 1973,
hasn’t come up with a more serious blooper, a
massive fertilizer shortage: Nobody doubts
that we are going to have a bumper corn and
wheat harvest this year. But this may not be
enough. After a generation of paying
would have been far greater. For one thing, it
was borrowed money—meaning the actual
cost to taxpayers would have been about
double over the life of the bond issue. For
another, such undertakings by state govern-
ment invariably end up costing more than
supporters estimated.
legislative halls—first by the farm lobby, then
by local businessmen who saw dollar signs
and politicians who saw votes from agricul-
tural areas.
Even Gov. Shapp, who was going around
the state blasting local school directors for in-
cluding swimming pools in new school build-
ing plans, was converted to the cause.
The only dispassionate evaluation of the
plans came in 1972 when the Governor’s
Management Review Task Force, a team of
outside businessmen, surveyed state govern-
ment. They curtly recommended that the new
building plans be abandoned and that the
existing Farm Show building be renovated in-
stead.
Yet suddenly last month the enabling bill
was on the brink of passage in the Senate, and
the skids were greased for a smooth ride
through the House and on to the desk of the
sympathetic governor.
Projects like this are very sensitive to
sunlight, and some last-minute exposure of
the bill in the press resulted in the bill being
wordlessly dispatched to oblivion in com-
mittee. Backers of the project have not been
heard from since.
But the exposition center isn’t the only
hogwash in this year’s pork-barrel. Still wait-
ing to feed at the public trough is a $45 million
“Hall of Justice” for Allegheny County in
Pittsburgh. Hall of Justice is a euphemism for
American farmers not to raise crops the Ad-
. ministration responded to the abrupt: world
food. crisis by removing restrictions on
acreage, including some 40 million last year
and some 20 million this year. But it made no
arrangement for more fertilizer. 4An enor-
mous amount is needed if the pric®®f wheat,
which has jumped from $1.75 to $5 a bushel, is
ever to come down, or if the world’s poor na-
tions are to be fed. :
. How much fertilizer? For cityfifiople it’s
hard to appreciate. Imagine a 100-car train
made up of 100-ton hopper cars. The train will
handle 10,000 tons and as'it rolls through the
lonesome prairie night it will be a mile long. A
boy watching the engine pass amd counting
cars will wait three or four minutes for the
caboose. The new acreage increase for 1974
alone requires 400 solid train loads of this fer-
tilizer. And the earlier acreage increase is
yelling for fertilizer, too. The Fertilizer Insti-
tute lobby declares that they must have more
gasoline, and fuel oil, and natural gas to make
the nitrogen fertilizer, and that the Adminis-
tration is grossly underestimating their
needs. City people want gasoline, too and the
Administration won’t ration. Every develop-
ment of this sort emphasizes again, the amaz-
ing interconnection of the shrinking planet
with its bounding population, and the dis-
order latent in the new Age of Scarcity.
Morocco and Tunisia, for example, two of the
biggest producers of phosphate rock (another
fertilizer) in mid-October suddenly jumped
prices 183 percent! Foreign custorggrs, says
Edwin Wheeler for the Fertil Sit
are “literally tearing down the door to get
American fertilizer.” But there isn’t enough.
He is only the latest to note ‘‘the specter of
starvation’ in poorer countries.
county courthouse—an edifice cy gomarily
built at the expense of county tax¥®yers.
Also waiting in the wings is Highlands
Historical Park in Montgomery County.
There’s a proposal to spend $150,000 to restore
the place—even though state historians aren’t
even sure it’s historic.
Pork-barreling could be dismissed as a
cute game played by childish legislators—
were it not for the fact that while millions are
squandered on nonsense, very real needs of
the elderly and mentally disabled in Pennsyl-
vania are ignored.
An independent newspaper published eac
Entered as second class matter at the pos
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